If I ask you which is the largest social media platform, you will answer Facebook, without a doubt, right? But what if I told you that Instagram is now the second largest platform and that Google+ is almost as big as Twitter?

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We tend to imagine social media platforms as being almost as equally important, but that is only because we see them through our personal usage. For me, for example, Twitter is as important if not more, than Facebook, but Google+ is something I almost don’t use.

Everyone talks about LinkedIn as “the professional social media networking platform.” Yet, it is only slightly larger than Pinterest or Snapchat, and much smaller than Facebook and Twitter which can also be used efficiently for professional networking.

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So let’s have a closer look at how big the 7 main social media platforms really are, thanks to this very useful chart from Justin Kerby, the Founder of Cave Social, a digital marketing agency based in South Florida.

Facebook is way ahead of the rest, and that is no surprise: with 1.59 billion users across the planet, it will be almost impossible for any platform to catch up.

I was impressed by the fast rise of Instagram, but I was especially surprised to see Google+ still counted almost as much users as Twitter. We are talking about two platforms which are struggling to acquire new users, but despite having been announced “dead” several times, G+ is still up there.

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Now, looking towards the bottom of the chart, Snapchat does not seem that big, but the platform is rising fast. Evan Spiegel is keeping the exact number of MUUs very secret, because he believes that “Snapchat is engaging consumers so deeply that he’s not interested in monthly active users.” Nonetheless, only a handful few will disagree that Snapchat is the platform of tomorrow and that its user base will keep on growing fast over the next few years.

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Geoff is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of We are Social Media. He also leads the Social Media team at Zimmerman, an Omnicom agency based out of South Florida, USA. Geoff is also a visiting lecturer at Universities across Europe and the US, and an international #smm speaker.